Broken Things

We spent a weekend away.

It wasn't a bad weekend, but it was a hard weekend for me.  I had anxiety leading up to it, surrendering through it, and the return home was another reminder that reality is messy.

Reality is such a mess.
I am such a mess.

So many aspects of my life feel utterly broken right now, and it's like wading around in Step One at every turn.

My car is broken,
My rental...
My marriage, the kids!   

We seem to own nothing as a couple except ourselves and the children: we live in a rental that is constantly a mess and drive a very old broken car that isn't our own (here's lookin' at you, Arizona State Credit Union).
Every time I crawl through the passenger's side door (because the driver's side won't open, or -shall I say- shouldn't be opened) I remember

BROKEN.

Our money is being pouring into recovery and medical bills.
Because, of course, my body is broken as well.

This is the place were old people tell you things don't matter... where they pat you on the head for being patient enough not to buy a house but to SAVE while you rent.
Except they don't know that we're not saving.  At all.

My job is the place I go to remind myself of The Great Brokenness.
"I couldn't do it," friends say, "leave my kids, especially when they're little... it's just not worth it."
But it is the CHOICE I made because it is what keeps me safe.  When I have no safety, I have my job.  I have a little pocket of cash to freedom.  I have the means to care for my children should I need to, and I have to think about these things in the unconventional way, see, because of the addiction.
I have to leave my home and talk to people about their tires and the 3% charge we have to add with a credit card because behind that greasy shop counter is a woman with three children that she loves FIERCELY, with a fire that burns hotter than any coal addiction could spit out.
My friends say they couldn't do it, but they could.  They could if it came to it.
It's amazing what you can do when it comes to it.
When it comes to The Great Brokenness...


Broken is a scary place.  It's a very scary place.  Broken is why insurance salesmen make good livings.  But there's no insurance for porn addiction.
(Business idea, anyone?)

There's only absolute breaking of house, home, and heart.
And body, while we're at it.

Everyone has something to fix me with: everyone has a book to offer, a line of advice to give, a remedy for ails me.  But I don't want anyone at all to fix me.  I don't want to read another book that isn't in my Gospel Library.  I don't want a remedy unless it comes from The Great Physician.

I am fully in His care right now.
Broken.

What To Do Next?

I always thought if DANNY got in recovery and if DANNY did what he needed to do and DANNY DANNY DANNY...

Things would get better.
And by "things" I mean life.

But you know what?  Apparently, Danny's actions have little effect on my inner peace and sense of balance.

It turns out only I have that kind of control on me.
And God only knows what I need.  Literally.  GOD ONLY KNOWS.
Only God.

I haven't been asking Him though.  The THINGS, guys.  The THINGS I have to tell him.  I'm ashamed, and I don't even like THINKING the thoughts I have let alone admitting them to God.  I tell my food.  I tell my movie marathons.  I tell my yarn and crochet hooks.
(What am I?  EIGHTY?!)

And only then, at the end of a uncomfortable day filled with the fictional lives of characters played years and years ago, do I close my eyes and quickly let loose on God and then quickly cut it off before He can answer.

I'm the pro at leaving messages on God's answering machine... like the 13 year old boy with a crush on the head cheerleader, "iloveyouiloveyouiloveyougoodbye."

But today there was a knock on my door and a envelope handed to me full of cash.  Cold, hard, cash.  I opened it and cried.  I just cried.  I cried for so many reasons.  Some I understand.  Some I don't.  But at that moment, I couldn't talk to my food or my couch or my yarn or Gary Cooper in any form.  Before I knew what I was doing, I was letting my gut take over the instructing of my body.

And that's how my bathtub came to be filled with hot water at the end of a hot, sunny Arizona day.

It's where I go to pray and cry and commune and only pause mid-tears to wonder if it ever weirds God out that I chiefly commune with him in highly vulnerable situations.
The tub is my chapel, I shall not want.

The warm water signals the end of my message leaving, and this time I listen.
"God, what?  What now?  What shall I do NOW?"
His presence is undeniable.  It holds me, surrounds me, fills the parts of me that I didn't happen to fill with Peeps and Cadbury.
And then he says.

Rest.
Rest, Alicia.
And write.
It's okay.
Feed the neighbor's animals
Text _________ to see if she wants the frozen pizza in your freezer.


I always forget to end my prayers.  I usually end up just meditating until my thoughts come to the present and I remember that oh YEAH I have to feed the neighbor's animals before the sun sets!

Are things better now that Danny is in recovery?  In some ways. 
But did it fix my life?  Did it make life easier?
No.  No, it did not.  In fact, it presented an entirely new SET of "how do I deal with THIS?!" 's.

But now I know the across the board answer.
It's the one I've always known but never trusted.

It's simply: don't deal with it, Alicia.  Do no deal.  Just go to God, go to God, and listen and wait, and REST in Him.

Happy Easter, my true sisters and brothers.  I hope your Peeps live longer than ours did.

Feelin' the Burn

How long ago was the disclosure?  the one where he told me everrrrrrything?
Today it April 12.  December 13th was the Big Disclosure Day.  So that's?   4 months?

I keep feeling like I should be doing better.  I shouldn't be so angry or depressed or whatever.

But you know how it feels when you lose something or someone?  It stings and hurts for DAYS afterward.  It gets a little easier with time, but there's some days where something as simple as a song triggers that wave of deep emotion and suddenly your Thursday is thrown in the wastebasket and you're curled up in your pajamas with comfort food and a pile of pillows.

As the months roll by, the emotions are getting easier.  But some days... words, a song, a circumstance throw me for a loop and I feel sad.  or depressed.  or ANGRY.
I still don't know quite what to do with anger.  It's such a foreign emotion to me.  I'm sort of wading through uncharted territories with it.
Do I write?
Do I scream?
Do I drive outside of town with a wooden baseball bat and tell a tree what I'm feeling?

Yesterday I felt that awful fire encased carefully in my ribcage -the kind that makes you want to scream and cry and take a million showers to put it out.

Trying to yoga it out or bath it out proved impossible.  My thoughts were crazy, whirling out of control...

So I fought that fire with... fire.
For the first time since beginning recovery, I burned something to cleanse it OUT of my life.
I took my workout DVDs -the ones that make me feel shame and hideous and shame and hideous and less than and lazy and hate hate hate -and I burned them.
I set holy fire to them.

As I watched the flame, I remembered how much I used to love fire baptisms... how I'd taken fire to anything I cared to get rid of in my younger days.  Ex-boyfriend pictures?  burned.  Small gifts from people who hurt me deeply?  burned.
notes?
letters?
memories?
BURNED.

Yesterday I rediscovered how healing fire is for me.

I have an entire bag full of things I'm ready to part with... not all addiction related, but all definitely demons I'm facing and that have reared their ugly heads since starting recovery.

I'm saving them for another chest fire.

SA Lifeline Conference Announcement!

You GUYS.

I've been holding this in for weeks.  Been DYING to tell you about it, and last night I received a flyer with all the information and a free pass to announce it:

May 10th -mark your calendar -there's going to be a Conference in Salt Lake.  This conference is something I'm really excited about because it is a RECOVERY CONFERENCE for those dealing with sexual addiction in their lives. 
And not just that... but a Recovery Conference focusing on the FAMILY.

SA Lifeline is interested not only in the recovery of the addict but in the recovery of the spouse, the marriage, AND the family unit!  Nowhere out there is there a non-profit so powerfully PRO real recovery in every facet.  I've looked!  I've scoured!  And to have finally FOUND an organization that has the interest of my family involved has been a remarkable answer to prayer.


If you haven't checked out their website, please take a minute and GO.  It's approachable and bursting with education and resources.

Danny and I are very excited to be attending this Conference -our scheduling and finances have magically lined up in our favor -and May 10th we will be in Salt Lake feasting on the words of recovery for our marriage and family... AND there's a luncheon.
Feasting all around.  ALL around.

SA Lifeline Conference May 10 2014

Did you see that class line up?

Recovery of the MARRIAGE. 
What about the kids? A Panel Discussion with Therapists
 
I'm dying. But I already said that... Tell me you're coming! This conference in the first of it's kind, and a great opportunity. AND there's going to be lunch.

I'm sold.  sold on so many levels.

Pathways

I don't always recognize when the Lord is speaking to me, so sometimes the same message will be sent repeatedly over a small time span.  It's a sort of padded 2x4 across my soul.
I hear it the first time and say, 'oh, how nice' (90-year old Granny-style).
I hear it the second time and say, 'what a coincidence, I JUST heard that same message not moments ago.'
I hear it the third time and say, 'wait a MINUTE.'
I hear it a fourth, fifth and sixth time and say, 'Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, gotcha, Lord.'

And then I thank Him and really start processing and listening to the messages sent my way.
Alicia needs a lot of obvious communication.

I read a post on Glennon Melton's blog about pathways, and I loved it.  At one point, I was teary-eyed because it resonated so well. She spoke of just living in the unbalance of it all, and I love that.  I love that my boundary with sleeping next to Danny is so fluid right now.  Some nights I feel safe, and some nights I don't, so my boundary is simply that I'm falling into the unbalance and going daily with my gut.  Reading her words helped me to embrace the messiness of this journey and be brave enough to say, "At this point, I'm going to make decisions day-by-day, fully acknowledging and accepting this mess and where I'm at in it."  I rested in Glennon's prayer that we not be proud or shameful.  She says:

Don’t become proud that you are further along than many travelers or ashamed that you are far behind others. Your position on the path relative to other travelers has nothing to do with your strength or stamina or wisdom or cunning. We are all in different places because we all have different entry points to the path. Where you are and where everyone else is along the path is none of your concern or business. Let that go. You are exactly where you are supposed to be, always, and so is everyone else. The portion of the path you wake up to today was written for you. Everyone is EXACTLY where she is supposed to be. You are not your own or anyone else’s path-planner. You are just a traveler. You just keep moving. Trust the Path. Follow in the footsteps of a billion other mighty travelers who have walked and run and crawled the path before you. Fear not. Carry On, Warrior.  

I took it to heart, felt the truth and loveliness of it, and then I set it aside and drove up to Utah with my friend.

We hadn't been driving but ten minutes before she related an experience she'd had while hiking.
She spoke of two miles' worth of ankle-deep sand, the effort it took, the difficulty it caused.  Once she made it through the sand, her path intersected with a group of hikers who had been on flat land.  They were fresh and had more energy, and though they were in the same place on the path, my friend was exhausted.  She related what she'd learned in that moment... which is almost exactly what Glennon had said.  "We are all in different places because we all have different entry points to the path... You are exactly where you are supposed to be."

Coincidence, right?

The next morning, I had the rare and amazing opportunity to wander around Temple Square by myself.  As a lover of anything and everything from the past (especially Pioneerish), I can never have enough time on Temple Square.
It's been months since I've felt true joy -that soul-filling joy that comes in random, unprecedented ways... when you see a breathtaking sunset or drink deep from humid, late summer monsoons.  Between recognizing that I hadn't felt joy in a long while and finding myself dwelling on how content I'd be with death, I begin to recognize that depression has taken hold on me.
And as I wandered through Temple Square with no companions that next morning, I snapped a picture of some fragrant blossoms and found that the joy that had eluded me for so long was quietly... THERE.  It wasn't overwhelming, but it was scrappy.

I entered the Temple, and there the message was powerful.
Pathway.
Journey.
You are where you are.
And that's where you need to be.

God spoke with me about my own journey and His will for me.  I basked in the architecture, the beauty, and the scene around me -filled with many, many people!  Some sat alone and wept profusely.  Some sat together and beamed.  Some sat alone and beamed. Some sat together and cried.  Some laughed, some smiled, some prayed.
I exiled myself to a corner to pray because apparently, I can't trust myself to NOT people watch long enough to let the Lord try and commune with me.
And boy -did I need communion. 

A few hours later, I sat at the bottom of Ensign Peak with my brother and his new someone.  We began hiking -something I've always wanted to do but never had the chance -living in flat land and now having a few children who make regular hiking, well... impossible.

But with no children or flat land in sight, I was able to hike.  It burned and I wanted to puke because I've never hiked before and I'm currently going through inordinate amounts of stress.
God spoke to me.
Be where you are.  It's okay.  Don't worry that people are passing you.  Don't worry that people are resting.  Just worry about listening to your body and progressing. 

And realized... GOD had been speaking to me all along: through Glennon, through my friend, and through his temple ordinances, and through the solid rock DIRT I kicked up with my worn out shoes. 
Alicia, LISTEN!  This message is for YOU right now in your life.  I have sent it repeatedly so you won't miss it.  Listen! 

I will accept where I'm at.
I will pray daily.
I will forge on with consistency, expecting to fall, expecting to climb, expecting the mess and living with heart.

And then I'll wake up tomorrow and do it again.

Shame is OK

I have shame.
I have A LOT of shame.
I was raised in a home where shame was a teaching tool, and I daresay I'm not alone.  I daresay that's not uncommon.  I daresay my parents are amazing parents.  But there was a lot of shame.

In the past year, I've learned more about shame than I ever have before, so if you already know a Butt Load of Crap about The Shame (I can't even apologize for my Nacho reference.  My son is having a bromance with Nacho)... this post will be obvious and old-newsy.

The deal is simply this: I've been shaming myself for having shame, and I've been letting others trigger my shame as well.  It turns out I have a pattern of WALKING TOWARD things I feel shameful about:
how much I talk (I make jokes about it instead of speaking up when OTHERS make jokes about it)
how I don't exercise (I find myself at the mercy of Jillian Michaels, putting myself through hell I feel I deserve because... well, it's all very "Tina, you Fat Lard.")
how I have shame (I have established a pattern this last year of going TOWARD people and places who trigger my shame, hoping to somehow overcome it?  be bigger than it?  not let it beat me?)
how I struggle to keep a clean house (and yet, I pull open housekeeping magazines and linger in impeccably clean homes)

I've been operating under the delusion that shame is something I can baptize myself of: be rid and cleansed of.

But SHAME -and this is where truth and light came flooding in last night -is an EMOTION.

Just like anger, just like frustration, just like sadness come and sit themselves down, so does shame.  I have anger triggers, I know what I can do when it comes, and I know that to speak and live from a place of anger is unhealthy.
And so it is with fear.
And so it is with shame.
I have SHAME TRIGGERS.  I know what to do when they come, and I know that to speak and live from a place of shame is unhealthy.

So shame?  Shame is okay.  I learn from my shame.
And as my therapist says, "people without shame are generally unhealthy... we're talking about sociopaths."

Today is the day I stop shaming myself for having shame.
Today is the day I stop running toward my shame triggers.
Today is the day shame joins the ranks of anger, joy, sadness, frustration, excitement, and fear.

Shame is an emotion.
It isn't something I can remove from my being, and I'm grateful.  Shame helps me feel a much broader range of human emotion, and each time it creeps in and I DO act on it, I learn.
When I learn, I come closer to God.

I will be shameless in the same way I will be fearless: with shame and fear around me.
Because although they are around me, surrounding me, and popping up daily, God is on my side... He is my Guide.

Kickin' Up Dust

Danny and I have this nerdy book club going on where we read the same scriptures individually and then discuss them later on.
Except it's not organized and there's no cucumber sandwiches.  It's mostly us discussing Christ over dirty dish water while the children punk each other in the background.

It is ALL good.

As I (we?) have read the New Testament, I keep finding Christ teaching the principles of the 12-steps, and it has been so validating for me!  I get some push back for working the steps because, well, they're "not scriptures" and I shouldn't neglect my spirituality for the sake of a therapy program thingy.
But they go SO hand-in-hand.  So very much.

In Matthew, The Savior speaks to his disciples (of which I'm striving to be and even cross my legs like one...) about shaking the dust off their feet.
I've read that before.  I've seen that before.
But I mean... I READ that the other day.  And I SAW it.

 

(aHEM.  I like pink.)

Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, SHAKE OFF THE DUST OF YOUR FEET.

I read it over time and time again.

How many times had I felt -HAVE I felt -unheard?  unwelcomed?  

How many times have I taken those situations and tried to manage them, tried to fix them, tried to help others see...

Tried to manage their perception of myself?  as if I had the DUTY to manage and control others.

I didn't know I could surrender at the time.  Surrender has always been -for me -an elusive sort of balloon that I load full of my unmanageables and send on up to Heaven.  It was something I imagined myself doing, and I always felt like I was leaving a message on a Celestial answering machine.

"Hello, God?  This is Alicia Again.  I was just calling about _______, _________, ________.  That's why the balloon is coming.  So, uh.  BYE."

Learning the process of surrender seemed awkward and imaginary and TOO easy... 

But as I read those words, everything clicked.  

Balloons, it turns out, aren't my forte.

But dust?  Dirt?  MUD?  Soil?  THESE I understand.  And how I love the idea of kicking it off and leaving it for the Lord to manage.

I find myself in certain situations kicking the mud from my tennies and saying, 

"God, I just walked OUT of a situation that is thoroughly pissing me off/making me insane/confusing me/breaking my heart/scaring the crap out of me and I feel like I was unseen, unheard, and powerless.  I WANT to continue investing.  I want to be heard and seen.  I want to manage this outcome.  I feel the urge to CONTROL. The urge is strong with this one (and I point to myself and laugh because my God GETS movie quotes).  BUT instead, I'm going to kick it off... I've walked around and gathered the dust of this situation all OVER my shoes, so I'm going to kick it off and leave it here for Thee.  This isn't easy for me to do.  I want to keep the mud, but I trust you know better what to do with matter and mortals than I do.  Can you help me get this caked on part off?  Even if I fight?  I'm trying not to..."

And there I sit on the porch of my pathway and stomp my feet.

The dust flies up into my desert and I breathe in fresh air.

I think of D&C 75:19-20

"19) And in whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you, leave your blessing upon that house. 

20) And in whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you not, ye shall depart speedily from that house, and shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them."

I like the thought of leaving a dust pile, dust devil, dirt path... leaving it as a testimony of my surrender.  Walking AWAY from IT rather than watching my balloon float away from me.  

Does that a hill of beans sense, friends?

This concept is SO powerful for me.  I shared it with my husband through our Cazh' Book Club (that's the casual form of casual, I'm pretty sure) via the picture I posted above.  And now he texts me pictures of high heels when I'm trying to shake dust.

It's truly adorable how classy he mistakes me to be.

Heels... *chortle*

I don't always think to surrender things right away.  Of course I don't.  More often than not, I choose to walk around in the dust of the situation like the pigs who live behind my house.

WALLOW in the dust until it becomes caked on my shoes.  

Surrender is only as simple as I make it.  God will let me surrender at my own pace and in my own time.  I can choose to make it a simple process of my prayer (written above), a phone call to a trusted person (sponsor), and writing it down to put in my God Jar.

OR I can keep it quietly, try and manipulate my own control, feel my heart pump and race and my head spin out of control... and in those times, surrender becomes increasingly and measurably and infinitely more difficult.

But still possible.

And still a life-giving miracle.

Why S-anon

I was asked a few times yesterday why I choose s-anon, so I'm posting one answer here to link to... all wrapped up and ready to link to whenever I need it!

The first recovery material I ever picked up was Colleen Harrison's "From Heartache to Healing."  So far as I could tell -or as Google would tell me at the time -it was the ONLY thing out there for women on the butt-end of the sex addiction stick.  Her words poured into my parched soul for a whole... FEW pages.
And then they started saying things like:
You can't control this.
You have to let go.
Try a 12-step group.

 

So I just discarded those ideas.  They felt SO SO wrong.  They went AGAINST everything I'd been doing!
When I finally did attend a support group,  I went with the intent purpose to simply sit next to women who knew my pain.  I didn't want to work the steps. I just wanted some friends.
They sent me home with a Healing Through Christ manual.  I only read it when I went to group -which wasn't every week because it was a 45 minute drive away to a completely different town.

In that place, I was ONLY ready to face my husband's issues and how they applied to me.

I was only ready to feel victimization, pain, anger... everything that could be traced back to HIM.
HIS choices.
HIS shame.
HIS addiction.

And that's okay.  It was where I needed to be.  I needed to feel those emotions, and I DID feel them.  Truly and thoroughly and sincerely.
I continued to attend group without working the steps, but each week my shell began to crack a little here and a little there.  As I STUCK WITH  IT... going, even though it was something totally against what I'd ever done before... the Spirit spoke to me in small, quiet ways.
Soon, I was reading the manual at home.  Surely, there could be no harm in simply READING.  It didn't equate to WORKING the steps.
I maintained I didn't need the steps because it was my husband's addiction.  Not mine, thankyouverymuch.

It didn't take long for the questions to look appealing... I would read them and realize that I had answers, and they were really applicable to me.
Before I knew it, I was working steps 1, 2, and 3.  At that point, I began finding support online from women working the steps.

Hope and Healing Forum
Blogging


This entire WORLD opened up to me where I began blogging and leaning about TRAUMA.
TRAUMA!

It was SUCH AN ANSWER to prayer.  To find trauma!  Feeling trauma fit right into my healing schedule of blaming my husband for EVERYTHING.
He did it to me, so I was more that ready to find healing.  Even as I educated myself, I was a victim.

Again, THAT'S OKAY.  It's where I needed to be.

 

I worked AddoRecovery, and a sponsor found me.  I completed steps 4,5,6, and 7 with my sponsor.
I was beyond excited!
A SPONSOR!  Alone, I made it through three steps over the course of a 2 years.  With a sponsor, I knocked out 4 steps in the course of a few months!

A few months prior to my finding a sponsor, I began to do something I'd never FULLY done before... I looked in the mirror.
I didn't glance or shy away or retreat... I figuratively stood full-form and stark nakedly in front of the mirror and LOOKED AT MYSELF. 
I didn't put my husband in front of me and ask him to please notice his addiction and how it was hurting me.
I stood there myself and stared in wonder and the WHY of me... the WHO of me... the WHAT of me.

Why was I hurting in specific ways?
Why did I find myself learning the same lessons over and over again?
Who am I, really?
What do I like?
WHAT CAN I DO?  FOR ME?

Steps 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 helped me decode these patterns, helped me to see myself in a mirror with the light of Christ shining down on me.
And as I flew through them, I found myself wanting MORE.  Healing Through Christ was great.
AddoRecovery was good and educational.
Betrayal Trauma brought some good light on my path, but it didn't light the ENTIRE WAY.

That's when I picked up the phone and called someone who had walked this path, someone without a license but with experience.  Someone who was actively working what they taught.
And that someone told me about s-anon.

 

With s-anon I found a cleaner and bigger mirror.  It was bold and honest and TALKED BACK.  It gave me what I needed in the same gritty and satisfying way a good, solid hike does.

Had someone given me an s-anon manual when I picked up that first book by Colleen Harrison, I would have trashed it, wholly and completely.  I wasn't ready to look in the mirror.

But now I am.
Now I am.

And s-anon is specific and simple.  It's approachable. 
It's taught me about surrender more than anything else, and practicing the surrender process has brought me PEACE.

S-anon is not a therapy program to be worked and rehearsed, it is a guideline to God, mapped out and ear marked and highlighted.  There's others on the pathway waiting to walk with you: men, children, other beautiful and wonderful women!

Reading the s-anon manual might make the reader feel broken and can feel somewhat offensive if you're still in a very painful place, but I would only ask that -if you are interested -you stay with it for a few weeks: attend at LEAST 6 meetings before you dump it.

In everything I've tried, this pathway has held more truth, more clarity, more light, more hope, more peace than any of them.

And THAT is why I choose s-anon.  God wants me here.

Questions? 
Get started HERE at SA Lifeline -it's a great resource and jumping off point.  I prefer the SA Lifeline website to the sanon website! 

Here's a link to an article addressing the question, "Why do I need the 12-steps" with a link to finding meetings in different areas.

No More Tissues

I'll never forget the day I was done crying.

For six years of marriage, I had shoved down my tears in favor of comforting my husband.  And when I hit rock bottom and six years' worth of hot tears came raging to the surface, I couldn't stop.  I cried for months.  No one knew my pain.

I talked with the Bishop now and then, but kept that relationship as small as possible -stripped it bare of what I was really going through.  My own shame kept me from opening up.  I didn't talk, I didn't tell... I was married to an addict, a porn addict, and the shame I felt was binding.
But one day I told someone who wasn't on The Shame List of people it was okay to talk to -she wasn't a Bishop.
I didn't want to tell her because the thought of someone else KNOWING made me physically ill.  What would Danny say if he found out I had talked about his stuff with someone else?  a friend?  another woman?
Still, something drove me to open my heart.  And I did.
I'm pretty sure it's easier to jump out of a plane with a parachute strapped to your back than it is to take that first plunge.
Why?  No parachute.

For days afterward, I felt ill.  I shook.  I felt deceitful.  I felt like I was lying to my husband by not telling him that I had told someone.  I was terrified he'd tell me not to tell anyone else, not to talk to her, and at that time... I needed the safety of space, the safety of being able to talk unfiltered, to share my pain and hurt.
And I DID.
For months, she would call. 
"How are you?"
I would answer and the answers were never witty or funny or nice in any way.  They were riddled with grief, with hopelessness, with false beliefs about my abilities, identity and nature.  I would apologize for my negativity, and she would listen and say, "I am so sorry you're going through this."
So many tissues.  I used up so many tissues.  SIX YEARS of tears came flowing out in six months!  Meltdowns were no respecter of persons or holidays or convenience.
The children watched Netflix and sat on clean laundry.
I gained ten pounds.

My dear, sacred friend continued to call.  The One Who Knew.  
Then came one day in late summer.  She called on a bad day.  I picked up the phone.
"How are you?" she asked.
And, like I had for many months prior, I told her.  I laid bare my soul.
Only this time?  I HEARD myself.  It was an out-of-body experience.  I listened to my depression, I heard my tone of voice... the darkness in my soul.
I hung up the phone and DID something.  I did the dishes. 

As I washed, I felt the urge and push and desire for something... MORE. 

I didn't want tissues anymore.
What did I want?
A life without tissues had seemed impossible, and to find myself wanting to move on?  I felt lost.  I needed guidance.  I needed...
...
TOOLS.

I wanted to WORK at something, I wanted to dig up something, uncover something!  But all I had on my side were a pile of tissues and a dirty house!
I had no direction, no one to talk to... the only person I knew who had gone through this had divorced her husband, and I didn't feel that was a path I needed to take.

So I talked again.  I TOLD another person.  Again, the shame was sickening, but the rewards were worth it.  She suggested a support group.  I began attending and looking into the eyes of women who understood my pain. 
The more support I found, the less pain I felt and the more tools I had!

My soul became a tool box, hungry to be filled.  Each meeting, each phone call, each new person I felt prompted to open up to became a stepping stone, a tool, a fresh face in my pathway.

And my tissues.
My sweet, valiant, loyal tissues.
I reserved a drawer in my tool box just for them.  Where they were once a lifeline, they did become a enemy to my progression... a trap, so to speak.
 For although I needed my time to feel and process the victimization, there came a beautiful and glorious day when I was ready to put my toes into the water of hope. 
I just needed someone to take my hand and guide me toward the stream.

And as I filled my toolbox, it was constantly shifting.  Is this for me?  Is THIS for me?
I rearranged and tried new tools, different brands...

This weekend, I turned and checked my toolbox out to find -most blessedly -that my toolbox is past it's shaping phase.  I can now open up shop and fully go hard and fast to work.

My tools:

• Monthly meeting with my Bishop where I hold NOTHING back but lay aside my shame and open up.  My Bishop is safe -my Bishop has not traumatized me.  I know I can open fully up to him, and I do.  He gives me spiritual guidance and inspired direction from God.
• Regular meetings with a sex addiction therapist.  My online meetings with Brannon Patrick have been pivotal in my recovery.  Having someone look me in the eyes and say, "Alicia, you have rights.  You don't have to live under the thumb of addiction" was freeing and hopeful and validating.
• Education!  Support!  YOU!  I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU! Reading books and blogs and finding true joy in my unending and ever-satisfying quest for truth!  The more I know and learn about addiction, vulnerability, truth, transparency, and LOVE... the stronger and more resilient I become.
• Daily work in a 12-step program (s-anon for Yours Truly) with a sponsor who is safe -more concerned about my well-being than my comfort.  I can call her and spill it all, and she can lovingly guide me, speak truth when I can't see clearly, and say things like, "Go eat something healthy, okay?" when I'd rather eat cookie dough. Working the steps daily means working surrender daily, and surrender is one of my greatest tools that brings me closer to
• GOD.  Each of my tools above brings me closer to God.  He is at the center and the outskirts of my recovery.  He is in my core and around my being.  He IS Alpha and Omega. 

My tissues are blessed and sacred.
I don't minimize or downplay the months they camped by my side.
I needed those months, and am FOREVER grateful to my friend who listened without judgement or advice.  Without those vital months, I never would have HEARD myself.  I never would have come to a point where I was ready to seek out and fill a tool box.

But here I am, tools in hand.

My life is filled with HOPE and LOVE.  Because I lived without them, I know and can FEEL the stark difference.  So I issue a prayer to my God and to those traveling this path, no matter where they might be on it:

Give me tools.  Give me tools.  Give me tools.
The tissues will take care of themselves.